The Bride Collector

by Ted Dekker

  They’re trying to kill me, everyone is trying to kill me.

  But the advantage of being God is that I get to change my mind. Why did you move my bride? My time. Have you killed Jack lately? The snake waits in the garden, seeking a new bride to join him in the hole. Perfect twice. Me.

  Paradise lost. It takes one to know one. To know the insane. When the jack is in the whole. Does jack want me to hide from you? No, I’m not sick, I’m just better than you.

  I’m the sunshine and you’re the Rain Man.

  A chill bolted through Brad’s body. He stared at the writing, then reread the note.

  What could he say? It was suddenly all very… personal.

  “Flight of ideas, but hemmed in to make an odd kind of sense,” Nikki said, her voice shaky. “How did he get this note up here? Surely he was seen.”

  “We’ll canvass and take a look at any surveillance data in the area, but I’m sure he covered his tracks.”

  “No one can see in here?”

  “No.”

  “But he obviously knows where you live. For all we know he watched us tonight. Or is watching us right now!” She sounded a bit frantic. Not surprising, all things considered, but not typical for her.

  Brad scanned the office building across the street. Most windows were dark, only a few lighted. A parking structure four buildings to the right could make a decent perch for a man with strong binoculars. But none of that mattered. At night his apartment’s glass would look black from the outside.

  He snapped open his phone, called the agent on duty, and requested an evidence team join them as soon as possible.

  Nikki paced in front of the window, hands on hips, rereading the note. “This is getting crazy. What do you think?”

  It wasn’t like him to be easily disturbed, but this was significant. Brad set his phone on the sofa table, hands shaking, then stared back at the note, trying his best to ignore the pins pricking his skin at the back of his neck.

  Paradise lost. The Bride Collector was referring to the Old Testament story of the snake in the garden. The fall of man, paradise lost. But the coincidence between his use of the word and Brad’s connection with Paradise at the CWI was uncanny.

  “Paradise,” Nikki said.

  “Yeah. Paradise. Who’s Jack?”

  She faced him, face drawn. “He knows you went to see her?”

  “Not necessarily. But he clearly knows we moved the body.”

  “Let’s assume he is referencing her, Paradise.” She spoke quickly, tense. “So first he makes some oblique reference to the women in your life, possibly me. Then you go to CWI with the body of his victim, and he goes to great lengths to leave a note, this time with a direct threat. So what, his fixation is now you? Every woman you come in contact with?”

  It wasn’t uncommon for pattern criminals to develop unhealthy fixations with those they saw as adversaries. In psychopaths’ minds, the blame for their ruined lives lay not with their behavior but with whoever threatened their ability to engage in that behavior.

  “He knows I’m trying to stop him. He sees me as a competitive threat, and in his world, that means women.” Brad glanced at her. “How does that sound?”

  “It’s tough to know how the insane think.” She faced him. “Tell me more about Paradise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Humor me. I mean, you’ve seen her, what, three times now? You spent half our dinner talking about her. If I didn’t know who she was, I might be jealous.”

  What? The revelation came out of the blue.

  “She’s part of the case. We only discussed her for a few minutes.”

  “Whatever, I’m just saying. Not that I have the right to be jealous.” She forced a sharp chuckle. “Listen to me, I’m pathetic. She’s…”

  “She’s what? A mess? Is she? Unlike us?”

  Nikki’s right brow shot up. “Come again?”

  It was his tone. In one moment he had dismissed Paradise, and in the next he was sounding desperate to defend her. In some strange way he felt like he should defend her. She was defenseless. Abandoned by a world that had brutalized her.

  “Come on, of course I feel for her.” There, he’d said it. “Who wouldn’t? She’s a victim of the monster in all of us.”

  Nikki nodded. “I feel sorry for them, too. But there’s a difference between empathy and affection. I hope you understand that.”

  “Actually, I don’t think it’s either empathy or affection.” He studied the note again. “I think it’s more respect.”

  “In what way?”

  “She sees things I don’t. She’s the fastest study I’ve ever met. A natural.”

  Nikki broke off her stare. “I can see that.” But her tone wasn’t reassuring. I can see that rather indicated that she saw something totally different.

  “I’m just a little unnerved by all of this.” She waved at the note. “Point is, this guy isn’t kidding around. He’s pressing through with this, and he’s not even thinking about quitting.”

  “Unless…”

  She walked up to him and read the note over his shoulder. The scent of her perfume was still pleasant, a hint of spice in flowers. Her breathing came soft near his ear. “Unless what?” The sound of her voice, light and clear. He was a fool, wasn’t he? In so many ways Nikki was the perfect woman for him. He should be pursuing her now, regardless of the case.

  Brad cleared his throat. “Do you know what’s crazy?”

  She took two breaths before answering. “Us.”

  “Here we are, facing the work of a psychopath who’s killed five women, two of them in the last week. We’re both staring at a note threatening me, and instead of breaking the note down, we’re posturing.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. Sorry, it’s all the stress. I hardly slept a wink last night.”

  “Well, you have the day off tomorrow. Take it. Go see your mother. Meanwhile, there’s a squad car outside your apartment.”

  “This guy doesn’t strike me as the kind who would let that stop him.” She waved it off. “Don’t worry, I can take care of myself. So, back to the original question: Unless what?”

  “I was thinking, unless he’s changed his mind. Instead of another woman…”

  “He’s got you in his sights,” she finished. “He’s turned this into a game with you.”

  “‘I’m not sick, I’m just better than you,’” he read. “‘I’m the sunshine, you’re the Rain Man.’”

  Nikki picked up her glass and took a sip, lost in thought. Swirled the wine and took another. “‘Takes one to know one.’ Does she trust you?”

  “Who?”

  “Paradise. She’s young and impressionable.”

  “Only a few years younger than we are.”

  “Not in experience. She’s probably taken with you. Starstruck even.”

  True. Paradise’s lack of subtlety in her dismissal of him had in fact signaled her affection for him. The thought had returned to him several times since.

  “She’s not that naive,” he said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t count on it. You’re a good-looking, powerful man, and you needed her. That’s pretty strong medicine.”

  “So now we’re back here again? What’s the point of this?”

  Nikki walked over to the note. “Maybe she knows more than she’s telling you.”

  “Not consciously.”

  “You can’t know that, not yet.”

  The thought was offensive, but he couldn’t dismiss it entirely. He could, however, give Paradise the benefit of the doubt. “I doubt it.”

  She turned to him. “Then show them the file. Let them read the notes. I said it before, and now he’s said it: It takes one to know one. It may only be circumstantial, but CWI is now directly tied to this case, and for all we know the key is locked in Paradise’s mind. Use them all.”

  Brad had already considered the possibility, however thin the reasoning. Roudy would certainly agree to it. But Paradise was another issue.


  “I doubt she’d agree to see me-”

  “Oh, please. You have her wrapped around your finger! She’s playing you.”

  “I don’t think you understand. She’s not like that.”

  “She’s a woman. I get women. Turn on the charm, ask with a twinkle in your eye, she’ll agree, trust me.”

  “You’re actually suggesting I lead her on?” He turned away from her and shook his head. “I couldn’t do that. She’s… No.”

  “I’m not suggesting you lie. One way or another you have to find out what she knows. What she saw when she touched the body. She’s your only lead.”

  “I can’t just pry her open and read her mind!”

  “Listen to you, Brad. Why so cautious suddenly? This isn’t like you.”

  She was right, of course. He didn’t know why he was so annoyed by her suggestion, but the thought of disturbing Paradise, regardless of the reason, felt wrong. She’d suffered enough already.

  He dropped down on the couch and stared at the note plastered on the outside of the window.

  “Earn her trust. Get her to lower her guard,” Nikki said. “She might know more than she realizes.”

  14

  TWO FULL DAYS had passed since Paradise attempted and then utterly failed to encounter the dead. Roudy had emerged from his black fog that first afternoon, and by sundown he was back to his pestering self. She’d spent the night alone in her room, with the door locked, ignoring the tap, tap, tap of her friends who kept stopping by and knocking. They weren’t rude enough to pound, but the taps might as well have been screams of ridicule.

  “Come on, Paradise, what did we tell you?”

  “I could have helped them, Paradise! I am the one they really want.”

  “He only wants in your pants, Paradise! What did I tell you?”

  “Go away!” she finally cried.

  Twenty minutes later they were back. Tap, tap, tap.

  But Paradise wasn’t insane. Nor was she mentally ill. She had some issues with phobias relating to her past, and she was bipolar, yes, there was that. But she wasn’t psychotic and she wasn’t crazy. Slowly, she managed to pull herself out of the deep hole into which she’d thrown herself after escaping the mortifying ordeal in the kitchen.

  As the night quieted she grew annoyed with her pouting and forced herself out of bed. She took up her yellow notebook and pencil and continued her work on Lost Highways, the novel she’d begun to write two weeks earlier. It was mostly scratching at this stage, just ideas and sentences haphazardly written on the page, a guide for when she was ready to begin the actual story on the computer.

  There was a significant difference between thinking and writing. Writing wasn’t just the translation of interesting ideas to paper. It was its own kind of thinking, which seemed to kick in only when the pen made contact with the page, or her fingers touched the keyboard.

  But tonight, not even that faithful connection seemed to yield any useful thoughts or emotions. She gave up after an hour.

  Hungry, she warmed a bowl of noodles in the microwave. She lived alone in a one-bedroom unit that was comfortably if sparsely furnished. A twin bed and a desk in the bedroom; a brown sofa in the living room; a small kitchen area without a stove, but it had both refrigerator and microwave, all she ever used.

  She spent half an hour on the Internet using the small gray Compaq computer the center provided all residents who could conduct themselves appropriately in the virtual world. They didn’t want someone who was deeply depressed posting suicide videos on YouTube, now did they? The computer was her gateway to the world, but she found little in the world that really interested her, so she used it primarily to research topics of interest, like mental illness and religion and nature.

  Cats and dogs cheered her up. If there was one thing she longed for, it was a dog, a golden retriever or maybe a Labrador. But pets were forbidden, so Paradise had to settle for pictures or videos that never failed to bring a smile to her face.

  Warmed by Top Ramen and cheered by a Web video of a cat trying to catch a butterfly on the other side of a window, Paradise slipped under her covers at one in the morning and fell asleep. A black day was behind her, but she’d survived many black days.

  She woke in a gray mood, haunted once again by her failure. But she was determined not to let it keep her down, so she ventured out. Her friends gave her about an hour of space during which they subjected her to overt glances, but the looks lengthened into unbroken stares of accusation until Roudy finally decided they’d waited long enough and approached.

  Paradise didn’t want to talk about it. She made her position clear: If they wanted to be with her, they could not say a single word about the FBI, Mr. Raines, or the case involving the Bride Collector.

  “Did he try any funny business?” Andrea immediately wanted to know.

  “What did I just say? Nothing about Mr. Raines.”

  “I didn’t say Mr. Raines. I said he.”

  “But you meant Mr. Raines. Nothing about any of those things no matter what words you use to describe them.”

  Casanova lifted a finger. “Did anybody try any funny business?”

  “And nothing about my nonexistent love life. Period. No more questions, period.”

  “What?” Roudy cried. “I haven’t even asked a single question. They both got one. I demand an opportunity to cross-examine the witness!”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  Paradise stuck to her decision the rest of the day. When Roudy tap, tap, tapped on her door at ten that night, she buried her head under her pillow until he left.

  But today was a new day, and she was finally feeling distant enough from her failure to open up. There was, after all, some benefit to being at the center of attention, and her refusal to give them even a snippet of information the prior day had worked all three into quite a tizzy. She was practically a celebrity. They acted as if they’d won the lottery when she announced that she would meet them in Roudy’s office at nine to break her silence.

  Now here they sat: Casanova, who was having a bad morning and hardly able to concentrate on their discussion; Andrea, who was sinking fast into a full-blown depressive cycle; Roudy, who sat against the desk like the lion king who had finally found his place, leading the hunt; and Paradise, who had just told them what she could remember and was suddenly wishing she’d kept her mouth shut about her suspicion, however remote, that Brad Raines found her interesting.

  “What did I tell you?” Andrea said.

  “How many times are you going to remind us what you told her?” Roudy demanded, glaring at Andrea. “We’re faced with the crime of the century here, and all you can think about is whether some high-and-mighty FBI man likes Paradise more than he likes you.”

  Andrea poked her head out of her depression and glared back at him. “That’s not true. I’m just more interested in her than I am in some dead girl that none of us knows. Not that I don’t care about the dead girl, but I care more about Paradise. Right, Paradise? That makes sense, right?”

  Paradise sighed. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you anything. The truth is, Roudy, this isn’t the crime of the century, at least not as far as we are concerned. The FBI came, they got what they could, which was nothing, and they left. We’re still here. Our lives still go on, here behind these walls. There is no FBI man, not anymore. It’s all past. Gone. Finished.”

  In his delusion as a world-renowned investigator, this was impossible for Roudy to comprehend. In his mind, he was all that stood between the killer and the next poor victim.

  His face turned red and his jowls shook as he spoke. “How dare you give up on innocent victims who’ve been thrown to the wolves?”

  Paradise put her hand on his shoulder. “Listen to me, Sherlock, you’ve been reassigned to a new case. A more important case that involves dozens of victims.”

  “Don’t try to tempt me.”

  “I am temptation,” Cass mumbled, eyes tilted down, far off.

  “I
’m not. The choice is yours, but you’re needed elsewhere. If the FBI decides you’re not qualified to lead this other more important investigation, they will let you know. But I think you’re up to it.”

  He blinked. “Not qualified? This is a blatant attempt at misdirection.”

  “Is it? If the FBI wants you back on the Bride Collector case, they’ll come begging, I can promise you that. But they won’t, because he’s gone. You’re too important for Mr. Raines.” Then she added, as much for herself, “We all are.” She believed that as much as she believed she really was a monkey.

  Roudy looked stunned. He settled back, forced to at least consider the possibility.

  “Then at least answer my question,” Andrea insisted.

  “I will. If we can all promise to move on.”

  No one objected, which was a kind of confirmation in itself.

  “What question?” Paradise asked.

  Andrea glanced at Enrique. She seemed hesitant, which wasn’t like her. “I just want to know, would you have gone with him?”

  Gone with him?

  “I mean, you know, not like I was saying. But if he…” A tear spilled down her left cheek; she was fighting the downturn. “If he really showed interest in you, I mean real affection, that might be nice, right? Because that’s what she keeps saying.” She motioned at the wall. “That’s what Betty keeps saying.”

  Paradise blinked. It was the first time Andrea had said anything positive about this whole thing. “That’s not the point, Andrea. It’s stupid to even think along those lines. That’s their world and this is ours.”

  “But I know what it’s like, Paradise. When I was on the outside, before I came here a year ago, I was, you know, quite popular with guys. It’s not just my brains.” Her eyes darted to the wall. “And no, it’s not just my body, either. You’re acting like a baby!” This was obviously said to Betty.

  Paradise felt perturbed by this new direction in their conversation. She picked up a Webster’s dictionary from the desk, snapped it open, and showed the spread to Andrea. “How many words are on these two pages?”

  A glance told the girl. “Three hundred ninety-seven.”